Disinformation phenomenon: its roots and the way forward | Ivana Smolenova | TEDxVilnius

[Music] [Applause] [Music] this is 2012 Slovakia a conspiracy Theory jenile Justice was born it accused Germany France and noric countries of the most brutal tyranny in the human history it described a multinational system in which state authorities are stealing children from healthy and normal families it started spreading quite quickly it was on numerous websites and social media accounts and at one point it even reached a mainstream TV station people starting signing petitions against it four years later another conspiracy was born in Germany Lisa case Ian bloy a reporter at the first channel Russian Kremlin owned

accused a group of ailum seekers of raping a young German Russian girl Lisa the story was quickly debang but it was already too late it caused media storm within few days thousands of Russian speakers took to the streets to protest against what they perceived was a cover up by by German police and against Merkel and her immigration policy neither of the two story that I gave you are based on truth both were fake if both were able to mobilize people and change their social behavior and there are hundreds if not thousands of such stories all

around Europe every day in every country but this is not really a new phenomenon I mean propaganda is method the word propagar was first time used in the 17th century it was used for propagating Catholic Church in non- Catholic lands and also War propaganda was used by gabels in the in the second world war by Soviets during the Cold War but the current phenomenon of thisinformation is different from these examples from the past it doesn't seek to propagate an ideology or a party or an idea it rather tries to destroy what has already been built

it tries to undermine the trust of people toward democracy and towards institutions towards Western values towards the politicians towards everything it is very destructive it mobilize people against something rather than for something but also conspiracies has always been here I mean there's always a part of society that likes to believe that everything is different different than they tell us in 2006 when they did opinion poll in the United States they found that 36% of Americans believed that the United States government was behind the 911 terrorist attacks and this number was actually quite High also in

the countries of Europe but having said that still the 2014 when the war in Ukraine started was a turning point because suddenly this phenomenon became much more uh Target oriented much more sophisticated and much more active so suddenly you had all those stories of Fes in Kiev and and dead bodies of dead children being traded in dbas you had it all over Europe in 2015 the same media started to exploit immigration crisis vilifying immigrants and exaggerating already existing problem and I think this made it really much more effective because because they were able to use

one of the most powerful weapons people's emotions and fear and once the debate gets to the emotional level people stop listening to arguments I have been fascinated by this phenomenon for years uh I work as an analyst in a in a think T in Prague where I have created and and now leads the Institute initiative to to study and to understand this phenomenon for my first study I I got hundred of examples of conspiracies and and and disinformation to understand the the main Trends and and the characteristics of it to understand it with our team

in frag we are organizing events uh discussions all kinds of conferences to bring more people and ideas to this topic because only by fully understanding such a such a complex and complicated phenomenon you can then propose the solutions the right Solutions I also work with a different team in KF uh Team of it developers with them we are trying to develop more innovative solutions to this problem so like apps or platforms uh I try to bridge the world of think TS and long reports with the world of uh it Innovation and new technologies a year

ago I moved to harv a city in eastern Ukraine it's also a place that is very close to the war in donbas and there information kills people 10,000 people have died in a conflict in which separatist and Russia are using propaganda and disinformation to spark anger among locals but what what I realized there and by study other countries as well is that disinformation and propaganda can be a very powerful weapon it can be a decisive weapon but what makes it really effective is a number of factors it's a socioeconomic situation it's the history of a

place donbas has been neglected for decades it lacked development an investment into infrastructure and into people many problems had been unresolved uh their frustration has been high for a long time also uh unemployment is high all these things have created grievances that were later exploited by Russia and by separatists and you may now say that dbas is is quite an extreme case and that it's true there's war in Ukraine but look at for example Slovakia my home country where I was born Slovakia is on the Forefront of disinformation attacks there are around 50 websites that

are actively spreading PR Russian and anti-western disinformation Slovakia has got also problem with the growing extremism the kotlaba party which is a Neo-Nazi party got to the parliament with 8% last year but when they recently asked slovaks what is the number one concern it was corruption the current government in Slovakia is going from one Corruptions to another again many problems has been unresolved there are many regions which are underdeveloped education system has been underfinanced it is much easier to manipulate dissatisfied people than happy people but now I like to be a little bit more optimistic

I think disinformation propaganda and manipulation online postes an immense threat to our society but I also believe West is much more Innovative and it can advance much faster than the other side which is getting much more predictable for us there are solutions we we just have a lot of homework to do first High awareness is crucial according to research people who understand the logic of the manipulative techniques and of propaganda are then more likely to become resistant to it once they're exposed to it the high awareness or in the society is very important so they

understand so everybody understand this is harmful for us so the politicians and policy makers are talking about it openly acknowledge the problem and condemn The Source this is important it's also important that the media and the Civil Society is investigating this so who is behind it what are the motives who's organizing it and why and if they are they are breaking the law then there should be legal actions but at the same time we are focusing on the problem itself we should also think about what it exploits on the ground and I gave you examples

from from dbas from Slovakia and I can come up with many more understanding that the disinformation is exploiting our own weaknesses is crucial if you want to come up with a strategy that is that is complex and comprehensive because if we don't make our societies resilient we will remain vulnerable to manipulation forever today it might mostly come from Russia and Isis but the same methods can be used tomorrow by anybody by terrorists by extremists by populists by politicians anybody in the world of internet and social media it is very easy to manipulate people to spread

a harmful idea through internet and only a strong educated and and confident Society can withstand information attacks and look at the countries where for example disinformation is less effective Finland itself is a casing Point Finland is under immense disinformation attacks every day but it's able to withstand it much better than other countries and there are a number of reasons for this first there's this High awareness so so the society in Finland they talk about this this phenomenon quite a lot politicians government uh Civil Society media but the high awareness is only part of a bigger

picture finland's got one of the best educational system in the world it's got the third lowest corruption in the world according to Transparency International it's got very effective local governments and stable business climate so as you can see there's a lot we need to do there's there are there are many things there's no one solution that will solve the problem and it's also it's also not one or the other we need to do all at the same time and it really starts with the education because the it Revolution and the new technologies they have changed

the way we communicate the way we learn the way we get the information then the way we talk to each other but our educational system has been not able to adapt to this change very few schools are teaching media literacy or critical thinking we also need to start asking ourselves like why people are losing trust in democracy and vestern values and how we can rebuild this trust are we teaching those values are we talking about them with the young people I was born in Slovakia uh during communism but I remember nothing I was too little

I don't know what it feels like to to live in a country where I can't share my ideas or where I can't travel to a different country I don't know but I should understand the difference between democracy and dictatorship and I also think each of us here can contribute just the fact that I'm standing here today at this stage means that we already made a step forward so tomorrow maybe you can talk to your friends to your family about what you heard today and maybe you can talk to your uncle who believes in conspiracy theories

but please don't approach him with anger or I don't fight with them because if you do it if you do it with disdain or anger you're going to shut the discussion at the beginning you're not going to achieve anything try to be more understandable try to find a common ground with the people of different opinions or different beliefs and also I hope tomorrow you will think twice before you share a provocative article or some article from a dubious website because I think these little steps can actually help the problem they can prevent conspiracies from spreading

and one last thing the goal of thisinformation is to is not just disinformation it's also the goal of extremists it's the goal of uh populists politicians one president actually right now is to divide and polarize societies is to make us less tolerant is to is to make us believe that uh some group or minority or a person is worse than we are they try to turn us against each other and don't let that happen thank [Applause] you [Music] a